Children who experience two or more adversities in the home are more likely to experience health problems, according to research published in JAMA Pediatrics.

Dr. Emalee Flaherty, of the Ann and Robert H. Laurie Children’s Hospital in Chicago, and colleagues used data from 933 children who were all part of the Longitudinal Studies of Child Abuse and Neglect study.

Ninety percent of those 14-year-olds surveyed say they experienced some kind of measurable adversity in their home lives. The children in the ongoing study were surveyed or interviewed at ages 4, 6, 8, and 12, and again at 14.

Researchers used the following eight categories when examining the adversities children went through by the time they turned 14:

psychological maltreatment

physical abuse

sexual abuse

neglect

caregiver's substance use/alcohol abuse

caregiver's depressive symptoms

caregiver treated violently

criminal behavior in the household

Comparing them with any health problems, including illness requiring a doctor’s attention or illnesses affecting the body (i.e. not mental health-related), researchers found the more recent the adversities, the more likely a child would have poor health.

“These findings suggest that greater efforts to minimize or ameliorate childhood adversities, especially those occurring during adolescence, will have a demonstrable impact on the health of adolescents and adults,” the study concludes.